Even Vegetarians May Not Be Safe From 'Mad Cow' Prions

New Scientist ^ | Ewen Callaway

[blam]

Even vegetarians may not be safe from 'mad cow' prions

10:34 26 June 2008
NewScientist.com news service
Ewen Callaway

Fancy a dose of prions with your vegetables? A new study suggests that infectious prions - thought to be the causative agents in mad cow disease and human vCJD – can survive wastewater decontamination and wind up in fertiliser, potentially contaminating fruit and vegetables.

The prions would be present in such low quantities that they are unlikely to pose a health threat, but as a precaution, "we should prevent the entry of prions into wastewater treatment plants," says microbiologist Joel Pedersen, of the University of Wisconsin in Madison, US, who led the research.

Prions could end up in wastewater treatment plants via slaughterhouse drains, hunted game cleaned in a sink, or humans with vCJD shedding prions in their urine or faeces, Pedersen says.

Landfill risk

Previous studies have suggested that prions can survive heat treatment and caustic chemicals, but to see how prions fare during sewage treatment, Pedersen's team spiked sludge from a local treatment plant with infectious prions, and then subjected the toxic brew to a typical wastewater treatment regimen.

This typically involves three weeks of filtration, separation and incubation with microbes that break down contaminants in the sludge, resulting in clean water and "biosolids" free of most human pathogens, which can be used as a fertiliser.

[newzjunkey]

Lovely thought. Local governments (San Diego, L.A., OC) are pushing “toilet-to-tap technology” to “solve” drinking water crisis. Just what we need.

So far, San Diego has been able to resist this idiocy.

[TypeZoNegative]

Yeech!